


grievances raised and damages ensued

by shawsameen



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, No Character Death, characters and other tags will be added as we go along, one-sided enemies to real enemies to idiots to maybe friends to lovers, they're treasure hunters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-11-27 23:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18200237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shawsameen/pseuds/shawsameen
Summary: She always thought she’d go out after putting up a brutal fight, not temporarily paralyzed at the feet of a woman she hasn't even trusted from the very start.// so yeah, this is basically an uncharted au





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello it's been a while and i'm sort of really excited about this!! before i start, yes i know i haven't updated beat around the bush since august, and yes i feel terrible about that. but here have this shoot uncharted: drake's fortune au because i've been replaying the game and thought hm. let's make it gay
> 
> you don't need to have played the game to read this story. i'm just using it as a basic outline. anyway i hope u enjoy!! i feel a bit rusty lol. also the rating may go up i haven't decided yet but if you follow me on tumblr then. you know. you know how i am

Shaw doesn’t trust this journalist as far as she can throw her, which, despite her taller height, she's pretty sure she can manage. The woman isn’t exactly packing much in terms of body fat and her arms, while somewhat toned, mostly just look like par-cooked noodles. Yeah, it’d be like lifting a plank of wood. Easy.

She’s been sizing Turing up and keeping an unsubtly suspicious eye on her since they left the dock, and John has certainly noticed. Needless to say Shaw’s been on the receiving end of a couple of arm nudges and pointed looks from her partner, the latter of which she’s mostly been ignoring by continuing to watch Turing like a hawk.

She’s doing so now, perched where she is against their small boat’s railing, elbows propped up on tarnished metal. Turing’s fiddling with her stupid camera—some old and outdated piece of shit that she seems weirdly attached to—and Shaw tries to stay determined in her self-assigned role as vigilant watch dog and not get distracted by the way Turing’s wetsuit is hugging her slim form. Not that Turing herself is of the same notion, because she suddenly finishes with her camera and glances right up at Shaw, eyes raking up from her legs to face before she flashes a bright smile. It somehow manages to seem both overwhelmingly genuine and politely asshole-ish at the same time and Shaw skews her with another flat glare before turning her head to the side and staring out at the calm water surrounding them.

No, she doesn’t trust Turing. Not for one fuckin’ bit.

But the truth is, they had needed her. Shaw’s done a stint in a Panamanian prison before (a brief one, to be sure; she’s not a fuckin’ amateur when it comes to a jail break), and she’d rather not have a repeat. John had been the one to suggest hiring a reporter who could secure them the required legal permits. A quick search had quickly led them to Caroline Turing, who apparently had her own popular web series or some shit, and now the three of them are here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean looking for Sir Francis Drake’s coffin.

Of course, the plan to ditch Turing as soon as they were done here had gone unspoken between Shaw and John the moment they had hired her. They worked good together like that.

She decides to check up on him now, lifting her walkie to her mouth. “Reese, you find anything yet? It’s hot as shit up here.”

She leaves out the fact that she’s also uncomfortable being left alone with Turing, not when her own wetsuit doesn’t allow any way to carry her gun. Not that she couldn’t take her in a hand-to-hand fight, but like she said, it’s hot. If her gut’s right and Turing tries anything, a bullet would just save them all some time.

The line is silent for a few seconds before it crackles to life alongside John’s voice, the static making it sound even more gravelly than usual. “You’re more than welcome to come down here yourself, Shaw.”

“Fuck you,” she says without heat. The truth is she _had_ wanted to be the one to make the dive but hadn’t been very confident in John’s way-too-trusting nature when it comes to women. She’s had to save his ass too many times to count just because some pretty girl with a fake sob story batted her eyelashes and conned him out of his money and, as is always the case with their sometimes ally Zoe, his clothes too. If Shaw hadn’t opted to miss out on a fun and way less sweaty time then she has no doubt that she’d probably resurface to find John dead and Turing holding her at gunpoint. “So that’s a ‘no’ on the coffin, then.”

“I didn’t say that. Hold on.”

She perks up at that, letting her arms fall from the railing as she straightens. Unfortunately it also gets Turing’s attention and she walks over and leans a little too much into Shaw’s space, her hair brushing Shaw’s shoulder and her breath tickling across her neck. Shaw very pointedly turns so that the walkie is held in the newly formed, foot-length gap between them.

“Well?” She prompts impatiently after a moment, scowling when John still doesn’t respond. “Reese, what the hell?”

“Maybe a shark got him,” Turing says, peering over the edge of the railing. Shaw doesn’t even bother to deign that with a reply, trying the walkie again.

“John, I swear to—” The line suddenly fills with static, mixed with a few strained grunts that paint lines of vague amusement across Turing’s face. Shaw rolls her eyes at the both of them. “Christ, hit the gym the next time we’re in town.”

“Shut up, this rock’s heavy,” he bites back a bit petulantly. “And anyway, I found the damn coffin, so send down the winch. No need to thank me.”

Shaw pushes off the railing and heads toward the winch system near the front of the boat, trying her hardest to ignore the fact that Turing trails closely behind her like a fly. “Yeah, yeah, it only took you forty minutes. I would have found it in half that.”

“And miss out on a nice tan?”

“Hey, your pasty ass is the one who needs to spend some time in the sun.” Turing makes to reach for the winch release and Shaw glares her down. She backs off with an indulgent wave of her hands and it only makes Shaw frown harder—she hasn’t come even remotely close to being amicable to the journalist in the five hours since they’ve met, but all of her gruffness seems to bounce off of Turing like she’s made of rubber.

She waits until Turing backs up a few feet before lowering the winch into the water, watching the ripples pan out. “Hook’s coming down, Reese. Make sure it doesn’t hit you on your big head.”

“You’re very funny today,” he says in a light voice that tells her he isn’t too impressed.

“It’s the company,” she mutters low enough that Turing won’t hear, though a glance over her shoulder shows that the journalist has wandered back down to the end of the boat, camera in hand again. She’s talking, apparently filming for her show, and has wisely chosen to do so as far away from Shaw as possible since the first and last time she tried to shove that stupid camera into Shaw’s face, she’d nearly snapped it in half.

“She’s not so bad.”

Shaw rolls her eyes. “Do I really have to remind you about Istanbul?”

“No, you don’t.”

“Or Dublin?”

“Seriously, Shaw.”

“Santa Fe was a special one. Couldn’t believe you fell for that schtick, honestly.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” he cuts her off and she can perfectly picture the wince he’s probably giving all the fish down there with him. Mumbling, he adds, “At least Zoe left me with my pants in Istanbul.”

“I still found you handcuffed to a headboard in that hotel. Have some dignity, Reese.”

She hears a snort and turns to see that Turing has slipped behind her undetected, leaning against a crate filled with God knows what, not even remotely attempting to act like she hadn’t been eavesdropping. And checking Shaw out.

Whatever. Shaw knows she’s hot, and she has eyes and a brain and she can acknowledge that Turing is hot too, if in that vaguely girl scout kind of way. The fact that she seems somewhat vanilla for Shaw’s tastes clash with the sheer amount of times she’s caught Turing’s shamelessly wandering eyes since the moment they met in that shitty tavern in town, her gaze tracking over Shaw’s biceps every time she so much as moved an inch.

It’d be mildly intriguing and Shaw might have even extended an invitation if she was inclined to let her guard down in front of Turing, which she definitely isn’t. Not that she really lets her guard down in front of anyone. But she doesn’t need her own version of Istanbul, thank you very much.

“Okay, the winch is secure. I’m coming up, almost out of oxygen.” John’s voice sounds through the walkie, and Shaw doesn’t waste any time in reeling the line back in. A few minutes later Turing is pulling him on to the deck, which seems sort of futile considering their respective physical states in Shaw’s opinion, and she shakes her head when John gives her his weird smile and murmurs a thank you as the coffin finally breaks the water’s surface.

She carefully turns the winch so that the coffin is hanging over the large, empty space they cleared out before they left port. John places a hand on Turing’s shoulder and the two of them step back to a safer distance as Shaw slowly lowers the coffin on to the deck, the heavy thing making the boat creak slightly as it settles.

“That’s definitely the coat of arms,” Shaw says as she walks over, her companions coming up on the opposite side of the large slab of concrete. She notes the barnacles and starfish quickly drying out beneath the sun bearing overhead. “Partially covered by sea life, but that’s it.”

“I dove for it,” John says, and when she looks up at him he’s offering her a crowbar he must have picked up on the way. “You do the honors.”

Shaw feels her lips stretch in a smirk, the anticipation making adrenaline spike through her body. “My pleasure.”

“You might want to get your camera out for this,” John says.

“What? Oh, yeah.” Turing stops her wide-eyed gaping to jog back to the shipping container her camera is resting on and Shaw impatiently waits with the crowbar already wedged beneath the coffin’s lid, giving John a withering look.

He shrugs. “I’m humoring her.”

“Yeah, and irritating me.”

She ignores his vaguely amused expression as Turing comes back, holding the camera in front of her face. Deciding she doesn’t care whether Turing’s ready or not, Shaw props the lid up after a small bit of resistance, tossing the crowbar to the side in order to help John slide the lid off. It’s fucking heavy and she’s mildly disgusted by the wet, squishy thing the palm of her hand presses up against, but they manage to set it down on the deck. She swipes her hands on her thighs and the three of them stare inside, squinting.

“Well,” Turing says after a beat, “that’s certainly empty.”

John winces, though not because of the distinct lack of a four hundred year-old corpse, but rather the annoyed sigh Shaw lets out, she guesses.

“Yeah, no shit,” she says, leaning over and reaching inside. “Nothing in here but some gold pieces and—wait.”

Her hand wraps around the small, brown leather book she’d spotted wedged against the side of the coffin, glaring warningly at Turing’s camera when it gets a little too close for her liking. She decides to play nice in favor of opening the book and slowly flipping through the pages, angling it slightly so that John can see better as he comes up on her left.

“It’s a journal,” he notes.

“Drake’s journal,” Shaw clarifies with a tiny, triumphant smile. “We were right. Asshole faked his death.”

“To pull off one final treasure hunt,” John says. “He went after El Dorado.”

He bends back down to sift through the coffin some more, and Shaw continues to flip through the worn pages of the diary, skimming the notes quickly.

“Looks like he went here next,” she says, pointing out a column of writing besides a sketch and set of coordinates to John, keeping her voice low so that Turing doesn’t hear her from where she’s wandered off to the side a bit to take wider shots with her camera.

“Never been to the Amazon before,” he grins. “First time for everything.”

“Uh, guys?” They both look up at the sound of Turing’s voice. “Unless you lied about being a two-man team, we’ve got company.”

“Shit,” Shaw curses, dropping Drake's diary back in the coffin and darting over to the pair of binoculars she’d been using before they dropped anchor. She holds them up to her eyes and scans the horizon, counting a handful of sleek-looking boats heading their way.

“Doesn’t look like pirates.” She purses her lips. “Don’t look like authorities either, though.”

John comes up beside her, trading her the binoculars for her favored Nano, and she checks her ammo and clicks off her safety before moving to Turing, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her down behind some cover. Shaw remains standing beside her, exchanges a terse nod with John, and then glances at the journalist pressed against the small wall of crates.

“Can somebody please tell me what’s going on?” She asks, eyes wide with panic. Shaw just manages to refrain from rolling her own—she reminds herself that Turing is just a civilian after all, and while Shaw and John may be treasure hunters now they’d done their tours with the military before. They’ve seen their fair share of gunfire.

“Rival treasure hunters, most likely,” she says. “Just sit there and try not to get shot.”

“That’s inspiring.” Her voice is dry, if not a little shaky. Despite herself Shaw can’t help her lips twitching into a hint of a smile.

“Help yourself to crawling on over to John if you want the rousing pep talk. I’m sure he wouldn’t completely suck at it.”

Turing shakes her head and forces a flirty grin on her face, belied as it is by nerves. “If I’m going to die today I’d rather it happen in the presence of more attractive company, but the suggestion is appreciated.”

Shaw blinks. “Seriously? You’re choosing _now_ to follow through on all that ogling you’ve been doing?”

“I’m an opportunist.”

“Right, how could I forget,” Shaw says, shaking her head. “Journalists.”

“Shaw, we got incoming.” Shaw sets her face in concentration at John’s call, ducking down as the first of the boats arrives, starboard side facing them. Automatically a hail of bullets shoots out at them, clattering against the railing loudly and making Turing gasp beside her. “They’re trying to board us.”

Shaw ducks out of cover and spots three men hauling themselves on to their boat, planting a bullet in one while John gets another. The last one ducks behind a pair of barrels just as a second boat pulls up to mirror the first. “I can’t get a clear shot,” she mutters, turning to look at the shaking journalist. “Stay put.”

She doesn’t wait long enough to see the tail end of Turing’s jittery nod before sliding out from behind the crates, crossing the walkway while the guy behind the barrels is too busy reloading his weapon to notice she’s moved. She presses herself against the bow’s railing, keeping one eye on her target and the other on the second boat, whose men seem to be preoccupied with John. She creeps up and fires twice when her man leans around the barrels aiming at the crates Turing’s crouched behind, her bullets find themselves in his chest and head.

There’s no time to go back to the crates as the guy thumps against the deck, the men from the second boat taking advantage of John’s clip running out of ammo to board. Shaw manages to get all of them before they can haul ass over the railing, but she’s still pinned behind the opposite side of the barrels as two more boats approach, one of which doesn’t stop and continues around to their starboard. 

“Reese,” she yells, pointing at the boat, and he nods in understanding. She vaguely registers him pulling Turing behind better cover before firing off a few blind shots, and then she’s preoccupied with her own boat for a while before four more come up. “How many fucking ships do these guys have?”

“Definitely not our run-of-the-mill hunters,” John replies.

She curses as her gun clicks empty, reaching around the barrels for the dead guy’s rifle and spraying at a pair of men trying to climb up in front of her. Unfortunately she’d killed him before he had another chance to reload and she doesn’t have enough time to pat him down for spare clips before a hulking dude lands on deck in front of her and raises his weapon.

She swings the rifle out at his arm, knocking the gun aside and wasting no time in introducing her fist to his Adam’s apple. She knees him in the chin when he doubles over, tossing his unconscious body to the side and cursing her continued bad luck as she darts behind new cover and notes his pistol resting near Drake’s coffin, too far out of reach. 

“Reese, I’m out and pinned down,” she calls, peering around her cover and spotting two men heading her way. She squares herself for a brawl, knows she can take the both of them even with the high probability of her getting shot along the way, and is just about to jump out and utilize the element of surprise when a loud explosion sounds and one of the boats in front of her goes up in flames.

When she glances to the side she sees Reese grinning, grenade launcher in hand, and all she does is spare a smirk as she takes advantage of the two guys’ momentary distraction. She smacks the first man’s gun away just as he fires, his shot grazing the second man’s arm and leaving her with a few seconds to spare to take down the guy in front of her. The sound of his nose breaking against her hand is lost as Reese decimates another boat, and she pries the gun from the thug’s fist and smacks it against his temple. His body falls to the deck and she aims and fires at the other guy as he finally rights himself on his feet, the force of the bullets sending him over the edge of the railing. 

She barely registers the splash as she moves on to the final group of men attempting to flank John around the cockpit as he takes out the last of the boats, downing two of them while the others duck behind the metal structure. She mirrors their position, peering around the edge and firing a few blind shots in an attempt to get them both to stay and not split up in favor of keeping her pinned down while one of them goes after Reese. 

She presses herself against the wall of the cockpit as one of the men return fire, glancing around for something to use to distract him with. She spots the binoculars resting on a container across from her and leans out to snatch them up, waiting for a pause in the thug’s firing before peering around the corner and tossing the binoculars down the pathway. 

Letting the sound of the metal clunking against the deck muffle her footsteps, she moves across and slides along the railing, keeping her gun raised and an eye on the dude as he spares a glance at the binoculars. Just like the first guy behind the barrels, when he pops out of cover again he’s aiming at a place where she no longer is, and she shoots him once in the head, immediately preparing herself for the second guy to attack. When nothing happens for ten seconds she crosses back over to the cockpit’s wall, snapping around the corner they’d been hiding behind and lowering her gun when she spots the second man’s body at the opposite corner, sprawled on the deck in a pool of his own blood.

Still, she hasn’t heard an all clear from John, so she keeps her guard up as she follows the stern-side path and rounds the corner. Her eyes widen immediately and she steps around the dead thug’s body over to where John lies on the deck, his grenade launcher resting beside his limp hand. She crouches down and presses her fingers to his neck. His pulse is faint, but there. She glances back, then scans her eyes ahead of her and lets out a very precise string of curses in her head. Turing is nowhere in sight.

When they get out of this she’s going to ban John from having to deal with any women that aren’t her in their professional life, because this is worse than Istanbul and Santa Fe combined.

Shaw rises slowly and quietly to her feet, bringing her gun back in front of her. She uses all her years of training to move silently along the walkway, deeming John safe where he is for now. She sweeps her eyes back and forth and searches for any signs of movement, finger poised above the trigger. There’s a small part of her that hopes to find Turing cowering behind some crates, but Shaw isn’t a fucking idiot. 

Ironically, she’s mentally telling herself this just as she finds the cockpit empty of anybody and feels the familiar twin fangs of a taser sink into her neck. 

She drops like deadweight to the floor, the back of her head smacking against the deck with a painful crack that even someone without her medical experience would know meant she’s suffered at least a mild concussion. Her entire body convulses with electricity and she can’t even move her muscles into the scathing scowl she wants to direct at the figure standing over her, blurry as she is through Shaw’s rapidly darkening vision.

“I’m really sorry about this,” Turing says in a way that tells Shaw she really isn’t, “but like I said, Sameen: I’m an opportunist.”

Shaw just manages to make out Turing flipping through the pages of Drake’s diary, the gun Shaw had knocked out of one of the earlier thugs’ hands and sent flying near the coffin now in her grasp. She’s at Turing’s mercy now, can expect a bullet any second, and Shaw just mostly hates the fact that she’s going to die in a random spot off the coast of Panama, unable to even form a syllable. 

She always thought she’d go out after putting up a brutal fight, not temporarily paralyzed at the feet of a woman she hasn't even trusted from the very start.

“It’s honestly a shame,” Turing continues. “You really are impressive. But I’m not much of a team player, sadly.”

Shaw can already feel herself slipping into unconsciousness, her eyelids beginning to droop. Turing steps closer and crouches down so that the tips of her long hair are just barely brushing Shaw’s chest. Not that she can exactly feel it.

“I guess you do deserve to know who I am.” Her mouth is stretched in a broad smile. Weirdly enough Shaw realizes it’s the most genuine one she’s seen on her since they’ve met. “You can call me Root. And by the time you wake up I’ll be long gone from here.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd like to remind everyone of the very first non-character tag on this fic. there's some more notes to be had but for the sake of not spoiling a small part of this chapter, i'll put them at the end :)

Root glances back down at the sketched entrance in Drake’s diary for what feels like the hundredth time, frowning when she still doesn’t spot anything even remotely resembling it amongst the thick wall of jungle surrounding her. She’s been waltzing around this particular part of the Amazon for hours, the voice in her ear not doing much to help considering She can see even less than Root can. Still, she appreciates the company. She doubts she would have been able to retain her sanity for this long without Her.

“Obviously this diary is four-hundred years out of date,” she hums, following the narrow stream cutting through the trees, arms outstretched at her sides for balance as she traipses along a zig-zagged path of rocks, “but I find it hard to believe that the jungle could swallow up _all_ evidence of an entire Southern American colony, don’t you?”

“The sheer amount of rainfall that has occured in this sector over the last four centuries is enough to cause a drastic amount of erosion on any abandoned structure, especially one not up to modern standards.”

“Well, of course,” Root replies. She hops off a rather large rock and looks up around at the new area she’s found herself in. It doesn’t look very different from every other part of the rainforest she’s been to so far. “But still. There has to be _something_.”

She opens the diary again, skimming the pages quickly on the off-chance that she’d missed something the five times she read the thing cover-to-cover on the trip here. She can’t be in the wrong place, and she’s definitely still within a hundred-yard radius of the coordinates Drake had jotted down on the same page with the entrance sketch, so—

“Perhaps Sameen Shaw and John Reese would have been able to provide substantial help had you not left them on their boat.”

Root’s finger pauses where it’s tracing a line of scrawled text in the diary, her lips parting ever so slightly. This hasn’t been the first time She’s brought up the pair of treasure hunters since she commandeered the only boat the big lug hadn’t managed to blow to pieces yesterday afternoon, and She’s only gotten progressively less subtle about it.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d think you have a problem with me leaving them behind,” she says slowly, making sure to keep her voice light as she shuts the diary and stows it away in her pocket. She spots a narrow opening through a collection of trees and, after deeming it large enough for her to squeeze through, wedges her body between two mossy trunks and stumbles out into another clearing divided by the stream. She quickly weighs her very limited options and decides to continue following it.

“You seemed to like Shaw.” Root notes the fact that She doesn’t directly respond to her sentence, but elects not to point it out. The last thing she needs right now in the middle of this jungle is to be given the silent treatment.

“I did,” she says instead.

“And yet you still caused her physical harm and left her to her probable death.”

“I did,” she repeats. “But I needed this diary, and in my defense the two of them had no plans to include Caroline Turing any farther than using her for her admittedly fake legal permits. Besides, I work better alone.”

“You are not alone. You have me.”

Root feels a warmth blossom in her chest, unable to contain the smile that spreads across her face. “Of course, you’re right. I’m sorry.”

“There is no need to apologize.” There’s a pause and for a brief second Root thinks She’s dropped the subject of her one-time companions, but if there is one thing she’s learned since the start of their partnership (and she’s learned many), it’s that Her curiosity is near insatiable. “Your initial plans were to kill them, but in the end you did not.”

Root nods even though She can’t see her, though there is a bird perched high on a nearby tree that’s been cleaning its feathers and tracking her movement almost as an afterthought. “A last minute decision.”

“Because of Shaw?”

“I’d be lying if I said no, and I wouldn’t lie to you,” she answers. “I didn’t expect to take a liking to her. And, yes, even though I did taze her and leave her back on that boat, the idea of killing her didn’t feel right. Let her live to fight on another day.”

“Though you did not have to let Reese live as well.”

“Gullible for a kind smile as he may be, he did try to give me the benefit of the doubt. Not shooting him while he was ‘protecting’ me was the least I could do, I suppose.”

“So it had nothing to do with affecting Shaw’s opinion of you, then.”

Root lets out a dry laugh, though she’s unsure where She’s going with this particular tangent of conversation. “I think it’s safe to say that Shaw’s opinion of me is astoundingly low, not that it was ever high to begin with. She was suspicious of me from the moment we met. If I ever see her again I have no doubt that she’d greet me with a bullet.” She lets out a dramatic sigh, stepping over a muddy puddle. “Though I’d prefer something much more…”

“In close quarters?”

This time her laugh is much more genuine. “That leaves a lot of room for interpretation, but sure.”

She’s almost surprised when She doesn’t prod any further, though she’s even more shocked when she follows the river around a tall boulder and is greeted by the blessed sight of man-made rock pillars, covered as they are by the jungle overgrowth. She tries not to get her hopes up too high as she approaches one of them, pushing back vines and tracing the intricate designs with her fingers.

“I think I found something,” she tells Her, walking over to inspect another pillar nearby. It’s almost exactly the same, and a quick skim through the journal tells her nothing about them, so she deems them unimportant. “Evidence of a civilization, at least.”

“And the entrance?”

“Hold on.” She spots a much larger structure at the end of the clearing and weaves her way around the thick pillars towards it, and although it’s way more intact than its companions, she doesn’t spot anything out of the ordinary. Still, she leans in to get a closer look at the carvings, following them along. “History was never the most fascinating subject for me in school, but I do have to admit there’s something a little thrilling about seeing something that’s been here for four c—”

Root catches herself on a handy ledge as her foot suddenly goes right through ground, the piece of stone path she’d stepped on falling down and clattering against something that sounds distinctly like it isn’t made of soil, but more rock.

“Are you in danger?”

“No, but I think I just stumbled on to something. Literally so.” She smirks at her own joke and takes a step back on to safer ground, reaching inside her pocket for the diary and opening it to the page with the sketched entrance, flicking her eyes between it and the stone wall. “I think this is it. But the entrance is hidden, probably underneath that layer of rock I just almost fell through, and I don’t—”

She stops, smiling wide as she remembers Her suggesting she bring grenades before she’d departed her motel room earlier this morning. “Oh, you think of everything.”

“I was inspired by what you told me about Reese and his grenade launcher.”

“Of course,” she says, walking back and positioning herself behind one of the pillars a few yards away, providing herself with ample cover. “Let’s hope I’m the only person here because this is going to make a hell of a lot of noise.”

She takes the pin out of the grenade and underhand throws it towards the entrance, making sure not to put too much power behind it. The last thing she needs is to get too close to the wall and cause a cave-in because she doesn’t have the proper equipment on hand to clear the entrance if it comes to that. Luckily she calculated her strength right, because the grenade rolls to a standstill between two rocks a couple feet away from the hollow patch of ground and explodes in a cloud of dirt, rock, and shrapnel a few seconds later, the wall remaining blessedly intact when the dust settles.

She walks over and peers into the opening the grenade created. Parts of the actual entryway are crumbling, but it’s hard to say if that’s because of the explosion or just years of wear and tear. Still, it doesn’t look like it’ll collapse behind her, so she takes a deep breath and braces a hand on the ground, hopping down.

“Your heart rate is elevated.”

“I wish I could say it was one-hundred percent excitement,” Root replies, “but to be honest, I’m not looking forward to all the bugs.”

* * *

“Wait. You hear that?”

“Kind of hard to miss an explosion in the middle of all this, Reese,” Shaw grouses, waving her hand around in a vague gesture at the jungle surrounding them. She’s all one for some silence, obviously, but there is a very fine line between peaceful and boring, and the past hour has certainly crossed on to the latter side. The explosion most definitely means trouble, but at least she’ll get to have some fun. And maybe some revenge, if she’s lucky. “You think it’s our journalist friend?”

“Has to be,” John says. “She’s the only other person who knows about Drake’s diary.”

“Rookie mistake not killing us,” she mutters as they move along, suddenly impatient to come face-to-face with this Root woman again.

He shrugs. “Maybe it was your pretty face and winning personality that stopped her.”

“Well, we can’t both be ugly.”

She smirks at his somewhat put-out expression before picking up the pace a little bit, drawing her sidearm as they get closer to where the explosion came from. A few minutes later they find themselves in an area populated by stone structures, the biggest of which has a pretty sizeable hole lying in front of it. Shaw’s thrown enough grenades in her lifetime to know what the aftermath of one exploding looks like.

The two of them exchange glances and Shaw takes a hand off of her gun to gesture at the obvious entrance. “Down the rabbit hole, Alice.”

“Why do I always have to go first?” John grumbles even as he slides down, his boots hitting the stone with a clunk.

Shaw follows suit, dusting her hands off on her pants and not bothering to answer as she follows him inside. It quickly becomes obvious that they won’t be able to see anything without the use of flashlights so they pull theirs out and flick them on, John also dropping a few flares as they make their way further in.

“Some sort of temple?” Shaw wonders aloud, shining her flashlight beam on the grime-covered walls as they walk. The light catches on a few innocuous pillars and scattering bugs, nothing interesting or out of the ordinary yet. “Doesn’t look like anybody lived here.”

“But there definitely were people here at one point. Look.” She walks over to where John is crouched, something aged and rusted in his hands.

“A helmet?”

“It looks Spanish,” he notes, inspecting it carefully.

“Looks _old_ ,” she muses. “That, however, does not.”

She points her flashlight beam at the footprints in the thick layer of dust and muck on the ground leading away from them and even deeper inside the temple. They’re very faint, but she’s been trained to spot things like this. “C’mon, leave the damn helmet, it’s worth jack shit.”

“Haven’t seen much of anything since we got here, let alone treasure,” John says, following her down the wide corridor. “You think Drake found it after all? Maybe we came here for nothing.”

“Not for nothing.” Her trigger finger twitches with anticipation.

John raises his eyebrows like she hasn’t been talking about hunting Root down since he shook Shaw awake on their boat and they hauled ass back to town. “And what exactly do you plan on doing once we catch up to her?”

“I’m not theatrical. Figure a bullet would do just fine.”

“Even if there turns out to be absolutely nothing here, that diary is probably worth something. Museums might pay good money for it.”

The sounds of their footsteps echo all around them, and the fact that Shaw can only hear their own tells her that Root has probably progressed much farther ahead. They find evidence of her presence nevertheless: a lit brazier that spreads upwards to the ceiling and courses throughout the rest of the temple, making their flashlights somewhat unnecessary. John still drops flares to mark their progress just in case, the light casting a deep red glow across the stonework.

After almost fifteen more minutes pass of following Root’s trail without any sign of the woman herself, Shaw lets out a short sigh. “I’m starting to think this place has no fuckin’ end.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” She follows his eyeline towards the ceiling and to one of the smaller braziers hanging from it, the flame within flickering. “There’s a breeze. I highly doubt this place has windows, so there’s gotta be an exit somewhere close.”

“We better speed up, then. There’s clearly no city of gold to be found here and if that bitch gets away with the diary….”

John wordlessly follows her as she sets a brisk pace down the corridor, making sure to keep her footsteps as light as possible just in case Root is closer than they initially thought. The breeze becomes much more evident as they progress, and soon they find themselves at the mouth of a gaping hole at the back of the temple, clearly man-made but too large to be the cause of one of Root’s little grenades, nevermind the fact that they would’ve heard and felt it happen.

They step back out into the jungle, the humidity hitting them full-force. Shaw bends down and inspects the aged scorch marks on the earth, brushing her fingers along a thick set of scrapes cutting through the caked-on ash. “I don’t think there ever was a city of gold. Looks like whoever blew this temple wide open dragged something out.”

“Well, if it’s a temple, something large but also valuable would probably be along the lines of an idol. A statue, maybe?”

“Could also just be a chest of gold. Hopefully a huge one.”

“Whatever it was is long gone. Do you think Drake did this?”

“It could’ve been the Spaniards.” She sighs. “Whatever. We need that diary to know anything.”

“Maybe Root’s figured out something we don’t know,” John says, continuing to follow her lead as she goes along the only path leading from the temple. She’s not particularly enthused about having to cut through the jungle again, but she does have to admit that the temple had quickly gotten just as boring, and at least out here there’s fresh air.

“What’re you getting at, Reese?” She casts a glance at him over her shoulder and catches the tail end of his wince.

“Just… maybe don’t kill her right away? Ask her some questions first, shoot later. Don’t do anything hasty.”

She scoffs. “You of all people don’t get to talk about being hasty. Unless that was someone else who tackled that buyer out of a third-story window in London last year.”

She hears John grumble defensively behind her and doesn’t have to look back to know that he’s probably rotating the shoulder he dislocated upon landing, the buyer’s body only absorbing so much of the shock when they hit the pavement. She hadn’t been particularly gentle when she reset the joint a few minutes later and it served John right, not that he really learned anything from the situation as a whole.

Shaw doesn’t know how John’s hero complex hasn’t gotten him killed yet, whether it’s sheer dumb luck he’s survived this long or because she’s always there to save his ass. Possibly both.

She doesn’t say any of this out loud in favor of staring at the very large and rusted U-boat they’re suddenly greeted with after pushing through a thicket of overgrowth, trapped atop a large waterfall. It’s clear that the boat probably traveled up here during monsoon season and gotten itself stuck when the water went back down to normal levels. It’s even clearer that they’d probably find something useful inside and that one of them is going to have to get wet if they want to investigate.

“Not it,” John says as soon as they make eye contact, and Shaw screws up her face in indignation.

“What are you, eight?”

“I’m the guy who’s going to be standing here dry while you swim out to that boat,” he says with a triumphant little grin. She has half a mind to push him into the river herself, especially when he raises his eyebrows and gestures for her to jump in.

After a few seconds pass she lets out a sound that’s a cross between a sigh and groan. “Fine, if only because you’re probably too damn tall to move around inside of that thing anyway. Wouldn’t want you to hit your head on something and knock your ass out.” She pulls her shirt over her head, revealing the black tank top she’s wearing underneath, and feels a small spark of satisfaction when she shoves the shirt at John’s chest and he stumbles a half-step backward with the force of her hand. “Keep that dry or else I’m using _your_ shirt as a towel. And watch your back. Root’s around here somewhere, I don’t see any other possible exits she could’ve taken without circling back through the temple.”

“I don’t plan on getting tazed again.”

“Comms working?” He presses a finger to his ear and nods. “Ugh, alright. Here goes nothing.”

She dives headfirst into the river and immediately starts swimming towards the boat once she resurfaces, not wanting to waste any more time. The water admittedly feels good after spending majority of the afternoon walking around in the thick humidity, but the brief reprieve is ruined by the reminder that she’s going to have to walk back out of it in wet pants and waterlogged boots.

God, she’s going to kick Reese’s ass when she gets back.

She swims up to the side of the U-boat, circling around when she doesn’t see anything even remotely resembling something climbable on the side facing John. Free-climbing the rocky cliffs overhead and jumping down on top of the boat is her last resort, mostly because it’d take out a large chunk of time that they really don’t have, but luckily she spots the rusty rungs of a ladder built-in to the paneling and swims over to them. Almost all of the rungs on the bottom half have broken off, but it doesn’t take much effort out of someone with the upper-body strength Shaw has to lift herself out of the water and haul ass over the top ledge of the deck. Not wanting to be in direct contact with the boat’s surface longer than she has to, she stands immediately and signals at John where he’s still standing at the edge of the river.

“Let’s hope you don’t need a tetanus shot after this,” he comments through their shared comm link, the faint layer of static doing nothing to hide the amusement in his voice.

Yeah, she’s _definitely_ going to kick his ass. “Let’s hope _you_ don’t need an emergency room after this.”

He laughs. “You know, the only time you’ve ever actually attacked me was when you shot me that first time we met. All of your threats are empty.”

“See how empty they are when I leave your ass in the middle of this jungle,” she growls, walking along the deck towards a hatch at the other end. It’s closed, but when it gives without any resistance after an experimental tug, she pulls her gun out and aims it inside, angling her body behind the open lid for some precautionary cover.

“Everything alright?” All traces of humor are gone in John’s voice, replaced by the steeliness that comes with anticipating a fight. She waits a beat, then lowers her gun a fraction when nothing happens.

“This has been opened recently, it should’ve been rusted shut.” She doesn’t have to elaborate on who it was that most likely opened it.

“Be careful, Shaw.”

“You mean, don’t do anything you would do.” He lets out a sigh and she grins as she lowers herself down, descending the ladder and making sure her boots make minimal noise when she steps off the last rung and on to the metal pathway running through the boat. “Alright, I’m leaving my comm open, but I’m quiet from here on out.”

She quietly follows the walkway, holding her gun in front of her just in case there are any surprises waiting for her. Everything is ominously quiet, and the boat is just as empty. She notes a distinct lack of evidence of the U-boat’s crew, though she also supposes they could’ve hightailed it out of here when they’d gotten trapped and found another way out of the jungle. But it’s almost like this boat, or at least a great deal of it, has been picked clean of salvage.

By the time she gets to another hatch, this one built into the wall as opposed to the floor and left wide open, her boots and ankles are submerged in water again, making it much more difficult to move stealthily. She braces herself for the inevitability of a fight, clocking cover the further she progresses. She hasn’t seen Root use a gun yet and while Shaw doubts her skills are on par with her own, she’s not about to take any chances. Not being as prepared as possible for any outcome in a situation is what gets you killed in that situation.

She ducks through another open hatch and pauses when she thinks she hears a voice, tightening her grip on her gun and straining her ears. It’s hard to hear much of anything over the low hum of static coming from her comm link, but she doesn’t want to risk turning it off in case she and John need to urgently get ahold of one another. She inches forward, pushing her feet through the water as opposed to taking normal steps. The voice gets louder the closer she gets, until she’s pressed to the wall outside of a small room and can hear half of the conversation that’s going on inside.

“...he had the torn-out journal page on him,” Root’s saying, and at the mention of the diary, Shaw hesitates to round the corner and take her by surprise in favor of listening further. “I’m surprised it’s still intact. Kinda gross it was still on him while his body rotted away all these years, though.”

Shaw rolls her eyes but remains in cover, continuing to eavesdrop. “Drake wrote about the treasure… hm. You were right, it _is_ a statue. Or that’s what this sketch looks like, at least.” Root stops speaking for a brief moment and Shaw tenses as she hears her footsteps. She prepares to attack, but Root mutters something too quietly for her to hear.

“They’re coordinates to an island,” Root says a beat later, excitement evident in her voice. “I bet the Spanish took the treasure there after taking it from the temple; this large map hanging in the Captain’s quarters means that the Germans probably found it too. But since no one’s heard of the discovery of the treasure of El Dorado over the last seventy-five years, I’d say they didn’t have much more luck than the Spanish did, not that I feel particularly bad about a group of Nazis missing out on a vast fortune and presumably dying in a similar way as their dear old Captain. What do you think caused these claw marks? Local wildlife seems unlikely, but he was mauled to death.”

Root waits for an answer, letting out a small sigh once she gets it. “I guess you’re right. There’s nothing left for me here anyway.”

She starts walking again, the increasing volume in her voice making it evident that she’s headed straight for the door to the room, right where Shaw’s pressed into cover. It’s too late to pop out of cover and fire; she has no way to gauge how close Root is to the door and, worst case scenario, if she’s got her own weapon drawn on the rightful suspicion that she was followed. That in itself could make things very messy if she managed to get a shot off before Shaw could, especially since the close quarters they’re in would make it almost impossible for her to miss.

Shaw makes a split-second decision as soon as she sees the side of Root’s face poke through the doorway, cracking her knuckles across Root’s cheekbone before she even registers Shaw’s presence, stumbling to the side. Shaw crowds her back in the room, not giving her a chance to recover, though her next punch glances off of Root’s shoulder as she awkwardly but successfully half-pivots with her momentum, moving Shaw’s original target of her temple out of reach.

She catches sight of the devious grin stretched across Root’s lips right before her own fist makes contact with Shaw’s jaw, though she moves with the force of it, absorbing the pain with a grunt and parrying her next attack with her forearm. The move leaves Root wide open to a hook that Shaw sends harsh and fast at the side of her head, and Root crumples to the ground like dead weight as the blow firmly knocks her out.

“Thought I’d pay you back for last time,” she tells the body lying at her feet, immensely enjoying the role reversal. There’s nothing she hates more than being duped, and she smirks as the hot satisfaction of revenge mingles with the adrenaline coursing through her veins.

John’s voice suddenly crackles to life in her ear. She’d momentarily forgotten that she left the comm open. “Did you kill her?”

“No, I didn’t kill her. Relax,” she responds, rolling her eyes as she bends down and checks Root for weapons. She pulls a handgun out from where it’s pressed between Root’s pants and the small of her back, tucking it into her own waistband, and a few grenades in a satchel attached to her hip that she leaves there for lack of anywhere else to put them. It’s not ideal, but she’ll just have to remember to take them off of her once they’re back on dry land. She also finds Root’s taser, scowling at the thing for a moment before stowing it away in one of her own pockets. “I have to drag her ass out of here though, so thanks for that.”

“And the diary?”

Shaw turns her on her side, finding some sort of pouch clipped to her belt, the little notebook nestled inside. “She’s got it in a waterproof pack. I’m leaving it there for now, don’t want it to get damaged coming back. Anything happen out there while I was gone?”

“Nothing. Are you disappointed?”

“Was hoping a bird crapped on you or something,” she says, grunting with effort as she hooks her elbows underneath Root’s armpits and hauls her up. “Christ, she’s heavier than she looks.”

“I’ll leave you to it. See you on the other side.”

She grunts again, this time in acknowledgment, as she drags Root backwards through the door and follows the walkway back the way she came. The water makes her move even more sluggishly, especially with Root’s long legs floating in the shallow pool and knocking into everything along the way, though they don’t cause her much trouble. That is until Shaw nearly hits her head backing up through one of the open hatches, causing Root’s body to slip in her arms a little, and one of her legs floats off to the side and hooks into something that doesn’t release her even after Shaw gives a couple of tugs.

Swearing, she readjusts her grip on Root’s arms and yanks hard, uncaring if she manages to dislocate her leg and just hoping that she doesn’t wake. Fortunately, Root remains out cold as her foot comes free and the force of Shaw’s pulling makes her stumble back with their combined weight a bit. Her foot also dislodges whatever it was that had caught her, the thing rolling down into the pool of water in front of them with a splash, blocking the hatch on the side they’d just come from.

 _Un_ fortunately, upon closer inspection, Shaw recognizes it as a torpedo. One that’s somehow been set to go off by Root’s stupid foot.

“For fuck’s sake,” she groans, flipping Root over and hauling her up so that she’s slumped over Shaw’s shoulder, allowing her more mobility to move faster. It hardly works considering Root’s height, her legs flopping against the backs of Shaw’s thighs, and the torpedo’s propeller seems to be moving at one consistent speed, but Shaw doesn’t want to take any chances. If that thing goes off while they’re still inside then there’s no telling what could go wrong, and Shaw has no intention of finding out.

“What’s going on in there?” John asks, sounding worried.

“Set off a World War II-era torpedo that may or may not punch a hole through the side of this boat in the next few minutes.”

“You’re on top of a waterfall.”

“I realize that, John,” she shoots back, slightly irritated as she cuts through the U-boat. She grunts with the added strain of having to carry Root directly, but is thankful for the much faster pace the new position allows her to move in. However, her gratitude is quickly dashed once she reaches the ladder and realizes she won’t be able to get Root up and through the hatch, and she curses as she looks for a Plan B.

She spots a weathered part of the U-boat’s side paneling a bit further back, rays of sunlight poking through where years of erosion have picked away at the resilient metal. It’s still too thick for her to be able to properly kick through though, especially since her boots only have rubber soles.

Getting an idea, she pats Root down until she locates the satchel clipped to her belt, flipping it open and reaching inside for one of the grenades. She’d frankly prefer any other solution than this, especially since the whole reason why she’s in need of a quick exit in the first place is because of the torpedo possibly going off at the other end of the boat, but her options are very slim to none.

John speaks up again, a warning tone in his voice. “ _Shaw._ ”

“Working on it,” she says, her own voice not without an edge to it. “Let’s hope this doesn’t go completely fucking pear-shaped.”

“What? What’re you—?”

She tears the pin out of the grenade with her teeth before he has a chance to get the rest of his sentence out, throwing it down the end of the U-boat toward the weakened panel and immediately pushing back in the direction of the torpedo to take cover behind a wall a few feet away. In the seconds that tick by as she waits for the grenade to go off, she cranes her neck to the side and spots the torpedo still lying in the water about thirty feet away, can hear it’s propeller ominously whirring and sputtering as it cuts through water and then air, over and over.

The grenade goes off first. Shaw doesn’t waste a second longer before moving back up, doesn’t even spare a moment to celebrate the fact that more than just the single panel has been blown out into the Amazon river as she steps around the now-mangled and singed ladder, wading into the water. She makes sure Root’s head doesn’t go under before she starts swimming as fast as she can to where John’s already crouched at the edge of the riverbank, his arm outstretched and ready to snatch them up.

The river’s current is much more noticeable now that she has only has one free arm to swim with, but she manages all the same. John grasps her hand and yanks her on to the dirt, pulling Root beside her and rolling her on to her side just in case she accidentally swallowed water on the way, not wanting her to choke.

Prematurely, that is.

Shaw snatches up her dry shirt where John’s abandoned it to the side, dabbing at her sodden hair and the water dripping down her shoulders and arms. She scowls at the U-boat. “Damn torpedo hasn’t even gone off. I feel like that was all very anticlimactic.”

“Well, not entirely,” John says meaningfully, and Shaw glances at him to find him pulling the diary out from Root’s waterproof pack, making sure it’s not damaged before stowing it away in the front pocket of his polo shirt. “The grenade was a nice touch.”

“Don’t go getting any ideas. Just because it worked here and on those boats yesterday doesn’t mean you can go charging headfirst into any situation with your goddamn grenade launcher.”

He crosses his arms over his chest, brooding, and Shaw rolls her eyes as she leans down and shakes Root. She gets a little rougher than is probably necessary when Root doesn’t immediately open her eyes, but Shaw can’t exactly be fucked to care about treating the woman who stuck a taser in her neck like a delicate flower. “Hey, wake up!”

She’s about a half a second away from smacking her when Root’s eyes slowly flutter open, unfocused for a brief moment before finding Shaw’s own. Her stare is intense, eyes full of something Shaw thinks might be mirth despite the position she’s currently in.

Which is… under Shaw. She suddenly remembers all of the flirting and ogling Root had been directing her way yesterday and leans back a bit, glaring.

“I hear you,” Root says, mouth curled into a reverent smile.

Shaw and John exchange weird looks before Shaw remembers that Root had been talking to someone on the U-boat, reaching her hand out to angle Root’s head to the side, checking her for earpieces. She releases her with a skeptical frown when she doesn’t find anything.

“Who the hell were you talking to in there?” She asks, motioning at the boat with a flick of her head. Root’s smile widens, though she doesn’t answer, and Shaw looks at John meaningfully, her hand twitching where it rests against her holstered gun. She’s irritated and growing rapidly impatient.

John steps in, leaning a knee on the ground since Root’s still lying flat on her back. “I’m sure you got at least a glimpse of Shaw’s usual, uh, _temperament_ yesterday, so I don’t have to tell you that I’m the more patient of the two of us. But it’s hot out and that patience is quickly growing thin. If you tell us anything you know, then—”

Root suddenly lets out a humorless laugh. “You can’t honestly expect me to believe she’d let me walk away from here unharmed, let alone alive.” Her eyes flick to Shaw and for once they don’t linger. Shaw pushes off her knees and stands, scowling.

“Forget it, Reese, she’s not gonna tell us anything,” she says, moving her hand to her holster with finality.

The shot that echoes around them a moment later makes Shaw jump, especially because it doesn’t come from her gun.

Everything that happens next somehow seems like it goes at breakneck speed and in slow motion at the same time; she watches as John falls backward, the bullet embedded in his chest knocking him clear off his feet. She’s got her gun drawn before his body even hits the ground and she aims it right at Root, only registering that the shot hadn’t come from her right before she can pull the trigger. Root’s still unarmed, body half-turned towards the path leading from the temple and staring at the group of people in matching black fatigues and body armor pouring into the clearing. Shaw recognizes their uniforms as the same ones the men who attacked their boat yesterday were wearing right before a spray of automatic fire hits the dirt a few inches away from where Root’s pushing herself off the ground.

Shaw grabs her by the upper arm before she can flee and drags her behind a nearby rock, chunks of it flying into the air as their attackers fire after them. She can’t get a proper shot off, not with the way they’re pinning her down, and she abandons her futile efforts in favor of pressing the muzzle of her gun to Root’s chest to keep her in place as she cranes her head around the side of the rock and tries to find John.

He’s still flat on his back, unmoving, and she can’t tell if he’s breathing from behind their cover. She also can’t risk running out into a hail of bullets to check; she’s outnumbered and pinned down, and she swears out loud as she wraps her hand around Root’s collar and bares her teeth.

“Who the fuck are they?”

Root’s face gives away nothing, but Shaw sees the way her throat bobs slightly as her gun digs below her collarbone. “If you’re insinuating that I’m with them—”

“They’re the same people who attacked us yesterday,” Shaw cuts her off, “ _you_ attacked us yesterday.”

“I told you, I’m not really a team player.” Root’s eyes bore into her own, her voice edged with a seriousness that suits her so poorly Shaw can’t help but somewhat believe what she says next. “But my… _friend_ is saying that they’re a group of highly professional mercenaries, though She doesn’t know who hired them.”

“Your ‘friend’? What are you talking about? You don’t even have any comms on you.” The same smile Root had donned when Shaw asked her who she was talking to in the U-boat spreads across her lips again, and Shaw sighs. “Fucking great. I’m stuck with somebody out of their right mind.”

“Though I did do a stint in a psychiatric facility once, it was for a job and not because of any severe mental health issues I don’t have,” she says, still smiling.

Shaw doesn’t answer, electing to duck as bullets zip overhead, clattering against the side of the U-boat behind them. She chances a glimpse around the edge of the rock, not exactly thrilled to find that their position is rapidly being closed in on. The mercs are only a few feet away from John’s body, standing over his still form in way that makes her blood run hot.

“I need to check if John’s alive,” she says determinedly, pulling her gun away from Root’s chest.

“Don’t be absurd, you’ll be killed as soon as you walk out from behind this rock,” Root tells her. “What we need is to get the hell out of here.”

Shaw glares at her, anger flashing through her body. “I’m not abandoning him, not if there’s a chance that he’s still breathing. And what makes you think I’m leaving here with you, anyway?”

“Your loyalty is cute,” she says in a dry way that makes Shaw even more furious, craning her head from side to side as she searches for something. She points around Shaw’s shoulder a second later, though Shaw doesn’t look. She isn’t stupid enough to turn her back on her, and Root smiles knowingly. “There’s a path along the cliff there, but it’s on the other side of this clearing. We need a distraction.”

Shaw opens her mouth, about to suggest that she kick Root out from behind the rock and see if that’s _distracting_ enough, when the fucking torpedo from inside the U-boat suddenly goes off, tearing through the front of the boat with a massive eruption that immediately causes a break in the mercenaries’ fire. Root’s up before Shaw can even act, and Shaw curses as she follows her, out of any other option besides staying behind the rock to die.

Still, the sight of John’s body lying on the ground is seared into her mind, but she knows if she hesitates even a second right now, if she even attempts to try and save him, she’ll be gunned down. And she knows John would want her to get the hell out of here, but damn does she hate this feeling of helplessness.

Root’s already ten feet ahead of her and Shaw sets her jaw in determination as she follows, gunning down as many of the mercs as she can before she loses sight of them around the overgrowth. The front end of the U-boat separates from the rest of the body as they round the side of the cliff, falling into the several hundred-foot drop into the river just as below them, and Shaw avoids looking over the edge as they push their way forward. They don’t even know where this damn path leads, but it’s too late to turn back now as their attackers spill out on to the cliff ledge behind them.

“Give me one of your grenades,” she calls out, thankful that Root doesn’t even question her as she reaches into her pouch and hands it over. Shaw tears out the pin and tosses it half-blindly behind them, feeling the heat of the explosion it causes on the back of her neck a moment later. She glances over her shoulder and sees that it’s formed a gap too large to jump across, the men who hadn’t gotten blown to pieces standing on the other side and firing at them.

Shaw ducks right as she and Root push around another corner, though she hears Root let out a sound caught between a cry and a grunt. When she looks up she sees a dark stain spreading across Root’s shoulder, the blood turning the sleeve of her blue T-shirt purple. Root doesn’t stop, though, just continues moving until they’re stumbling out from a thicket of trees that deposits them back in the area full of stone pillars, right at the temple’s entrance. All of the vines and leaves must have hidden this pathway pretty well considering all of them had missed it on their way in.

Root attempts to keep moving but Shaw stops her with a hand on her arm, holding her finger to her lips and nodding her head at the new group of mercenaries patrolling the entrance when Root looks back at her. It takes her a moment to realize the pained wince Root’s giving her is because she’s gripping her injured arm, and she releases her without apology.

“Follow my lead,” she murmurs instead, dropping to a crouch and pushing past her. She silently moves out from behind the thick tree blocking them from view, following an invisible path from pillar to pillar with Root trailing closely behind her. They manage to reach the exit of the clearing without being spotted, though Shaw waits until they’re past the next sector of the jungle before finally standing and letting some of the tension drain from her body.

Still, that doesn’t mean she’s suddenly forgotten or forgiven Root for her past transgressions, and Root lets out a disbelieving laugh as she finishes checking to see if they’d been followed and turns to find Shaw with her gun out, trained right on her.

“Seriously, Sameen?”

“Don’t call me that,” Shaw bites out.

“Fine. _Shaw_ ,” Root starts, stepping forward daringly, not looking the slightest bit frightened. Shaw doesn’t move an inch, doesn’t even blink, “You could kill me here, right now, get your little revenge because you’re mad that I pulled one over you. But you’d also be killing your only way to get to El Dorado.”

Shaw clenches her jaw, narrowing her eyes when Root’s expression lights up with a smug little grin. It’s almost enough to get Shaw to just shoot her right here and now, but she holds off.

“I know the coordinates to the island the Spanish took the treasure to,” Root continues, “and I’m not stupid enough to tell you them in exchange for my life, because there’s no guarantee you won’t still kill me anyway.”

“What’re you saying, you want to team up? Thought you ‘weren’t a team player’,” she says flatly.

Root lifts her uninjured shoulder in a shrug. “I can make adjustments. I’m good at adapting.”

“And how do you know I’m not tapping out right now? That I’m not going to drive out of this fucking jungle, go find some shithole bar and then catch a plane far away from here, huh?”

“Something tells me you don’t give up that easily,” Root replies, stepping closer once again. Shaw’s gun is mere inches away from the tip of her nose and all she does is smile like she knows something Shaw doesn’t. Which, she supposes, she does.

Shaw fixes her with a look for another long moment, gears turning in her head. She knows this is going to bite her in the ass sooner or later, but Root’s right, as much as she hates to admit it. She won’t be able to let this damn treasure go, and even if she could, she owes it to Reese to see this thing through.

“Christ,” Shaw mutters, shaking her head and reholstering her weapon. “If you try anything….”

“You’ll kill me, I know,” Root says. She doesn’t sound the least bit worried. “Now, should we get out of here?”

Shaw turns on her heel and starts walking, not bothering to wait for Root to catch up. “I don’t know how the hell you got out here, but we’re taking my jeep. And I’m driving.”

“Whatever you say, partner.”

Shaw turns her eyes skyward and shakes her head. She can’t shoot her now, not if she wants to get to that island, but that doesn’t mean she has to be gentle when she’ll inevitably have to look at that bullet wound on Root’s shoulder once they’re back in town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah, the machine is still working with root, and before you ask _why_ an asi would help root do her thing, let me just say that this version of the machine is different than the one in canon. for one, she wasn't created for surveillance purposes, let's just say she was made by some bored dude in his basement or something and because i don't like harold that dude is now out of the picture for the sake of this story. i'll get more into how she and root teamed up in the first place but for now she's just a really smart-assed and sarcastic AI who's found a friend in root and is pretty much just along for the ride kdfjsd


End file.
